Tag: Translation

This Summer I finally managed to read The Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Successful Freelance Translator, by Oleg Semerikov and Simon Hodkinson. Written by established translators, this book is directed at those wishing to build a career as independent translators. Whether you are a language student or an in-house translator wondering how to make…

Every once in a while, I come across those lists of (what are supposed to be) untranslatable words in different languages. One can argue that everything can be translated but these are lists of terms without an equivalent in other languages. So, if confronted with the need to translate these words, we would either use…

Since I began running my own translation business, I have always found this time of year quite exciting. The last week of the calendar year is a good time to go back and look at what went well, maybe even beyond our best expectations, and what we failed to achieve. I wrote a bit…

This is the third and last part of a list I created with the most common false friends between English and Portuguese. These pairs of words and their meanings show that the word which resembles the most in spelling and pronunciation in another language is not always the right match in terms of translation. The…

This is part two of a bilingual list of terms that look similar in writing but translate quite differently in Portuguese and English. These terms are known as false friends. The similarities can easily lead to mix-ups and poor use of language so I hope you can find this list useful. In case you…

In linguistics, false friends are those words from different languages which look very similar in writing but actually mean different things. For that reason, they can easily lead to error a less careful or knowledgeable speaker in the languages concerned. On this post, I will be displaying a list of 50 false friends between English…

Greek translator Magda Phili has put together an interesting book called Tapping Into Translators’ Creativity, dedicated to fellow freelance translators working hard on their craft. This little book focuses on creativity and how translators’ work really is a creative one, although those outside of the world of languages and even translators themselves sometimes don’t…

The second day of the BP17 Translation Conference took place in Hotel Aréna, Budapest. Unlike day 1, with the TEDx style sessions, these were delivered in a more traditional format, with 50-minute sessions. Because there were 3 parallel tracks, we could only attend 1/3 of the sessions. Let me tell you about some of the…

This year’s BP Translation Conference, organised by freelance translator Csaba Bán, took place on 5 & 6 May in Budapest, Hungary. More than 150 translators from around the world attended BP17 Conference and it was memorable. Morning Sessions The first day took off in the most beautiful venue, Uránia Nemzeti Filmszínház, located in downtown Budapest….

As most translators know, some translation agencies include a translation test in their recruitment process. This can be free or paid at a full or reduced rate. A successful outcome will get the freelancer in the agency’s database. At least in theory, this will get both parties involved in collaboration. Now, some translators refuse to…